Matters of faith: June 2010 Archives

I'm fascinated by the debate between Jonathan and Gail, as a relatively liberal and a relatively conservative supporter, respectively, of Israel. I appreciated Jonathan's rebuttal of the notion that a Jew who criticizes Israeli policy is anti-Semitic, and I'm curious if Gail understands his point of view.

I'm also curious to hear Gail's critique of this article in The Economist about "Israel's siege mentality," notably the passages below:

For anyone who cares about Israel, this tragedy should be the starting point for deeper questions--about the blockade, about the Jewish state's increasing loneliness and the route to peace. A policy of trying to imprison the Palestinians has left their jailer strangely besieged....

Israel is caught in a vicious circle. The more its hawks think the outside world will always hate it, the more it tends to shoot opponents first and ask questions later, and the more it finds that the world is indeed full of enemies....

None other than the head of Israel's Mossad, its foreign intelligence service, declared this week that America has begun to see Israel more as a burden than an asset.

That has led to the charge by hawkish American Republicans, as well as many Israelis, that Mr Obama is bent on betraying Israel. In fact, he is motivated by a harder-nosed appreciation of the pros and cons of America's cosiness with Israel, and is thus all the keener to prod the Jewish state towards giving the Palestinians a fair deal. He has condemned the building of Jewish settlements on Palestinian territory more bluntly than his predecessors did, because he rightly thinks they make it harder to negotiate a peace deal. Mr Obama's greater sternness towards Israel is for the general good--including Israel's.

If the real issue is Israel's long-term survival and welfare as a Jewish democracy, how many schools of thought can there be on how to accomplish this....?